Part 4: Virgin
Cedric, 23rd June, 1995
Minisinoo

Cedric met Cho at her request in Flitwick's classroom after curfew.  He'd had a bad feeling about the proposal in the first place, and when she showed up wearing perfume, the bad feeling got worse.  Cho never wore perfume.  Then she was kissing him and rubbing his prick through the front of his trousers, and his 'bad feeling' turned to alarm and discomfort.  She'd brought him off before, but he thought she meant to go further tonight, and when she took his own hand to slip it beneath her school skirt -- and he found she wasn't wearing knickers -- downright panic took over.

He jerked his hand back from her girl bits.  "What are you doing?"

Her dark eyes went wide.  "I . . . well -- I'd thought -- "

"You thought wrong."  Then he realized how cruel he sounded, and dropped his chin.  "Sorry.  I didn't mean to snap.  I'm just . . . I'm a little preoccupied tonight, Cho."

She wore an expression of worried fear.  "I know.  I'd thought I could take your mind off of it.  We've never -- you know.  I thought maybe tonight should be the night."

He stared at her.  She wanted to have sex?  Tonight?  He couldn't imagine anything he wanted less right now, and could practically feel his cock shrinking inside his underpants at the thought of touching her between her legs.

And dear heaven -- how would he ever manage to fake it properly with a girl if the very idea of intercourse turned him off so?  His stomach roiled like a sea under storm and he could scarcely think straight.

Running a hand over his face, he said -- as gently as he could manage -- "I'm too uptight.  I couldn't . . . can't -- it's just not the right time.  I'm sorry.  It's not you -- honestly.  It's not you."  And spinning on his heel, he fled up the steps and out the door, down the hall and through the courtyard into the cool night air.  He was sweating from nerves and still felt sick to his stomach.  Going over to a bench beside an oak, he flopped down on his back and looked up at the sky.

What was Cho doing right now?  Crying?  Fuming?  Going back up to Ravenclaw Tower to commiserate with her friends?  Would she be able to guess the truth about him?  Would she tell everyone of his failure?  What normal, healthy seventeen-year-old turned down an opportunity for sex on the eve of a dangerous and frightening task?

His kind, of course.  Queer.

Wanting sex wasn't the problem.  He was so keyed up he could probably come in a minute or two with the right impetus.  The problem, of course, was the impetus.

Closing his eyes, he listened to the crickets sing and the hooting of owls on the hunt.  It was still warm and muggy even at this hour, as if the air itself held its breath.  He tried not to think about Cho.  Or the coming Task.

Or Harry Potter.

After a while, the tight thrumming inside his chest lessened and the knot in the pit of his stomach unclenched.  He wasn't relaxed, but he wasn't ready to fall apart either, and in a splendid irony, he now had a hard-on.  Bloody hell.  He raised his head.  There certainly wasn't anybody around; the courtyard was dark and completely empty.  So he let his head fall back and his hand slide inside his robe to press the heel of it against the front of his trousers, rubbing up and down.  This was the only sex he was going to get tonight, and if he normally did his best to beat down and exhaust his body until he didn't want so badly -- well, tomorrow loomed and would it be so damn awful if he dreamed a little tonight?  He rubbed the heel of his hand harder, then reached up with his fingers to the top of the zip.

"Cedric!  Psst, Cedric!"

He nearly leapt out of his skin and actually fell off the bench, looking around wildly for the voice.  It couldn't be who he thought it was -- could it?  He was dreaming.

"Cedric!"

"Harry?  Where are you?"

Merlin's beard -- had the boy been watching?  Had he seen Cedric rubbing himself, preparing to wank?  How utterly humliating.  Especially if it was Harry, of all people.

A dark figure emerged from behind a tree trunk.  "Come over here," Harry said.

Frowning, Cedric picked himself up off the ground and stalked over.  "What are you doing outside at this hour?" he snapped.  "I don't want to have to report you."

"Well, what are you doing outside?" Harry countered and Cedric felt his face flush.

"I . . . needed to think," he answered, wondering if Harry would call him on that -- inquire as to whether 'thinking' usually included tossing off.

But he didn't.  "I came to find you," he said instead, and his admission took Cedric so by surprise, he could barely speak.

"Oh.  Er, um -- why?"

"I need to talk to you."

"All right."  And Cedric waited politely.

But now Harry seemed the one at a loss for words, biting his lip and frowning down at the grassy dirt under the tree, digging into it with the toe of a shoe.  "Can we go somewhere we might not be spotted?  It's . . . sort of personal.  And, er, sort of, well, peculiar."

Cedric felt hard-pressed to conceal the rush of both uncertainty and irrational hope that Harry's words drew out of him.  What was so personal that Harry had come looking for him after curfew in order to tell him?  Cedric glanced around.  There really was nowhere in the courtyard any more private than where they stood right now.  He considered the classrooms, but the memory of Cho burned too much.  "Come on," he said after a moment, and led Harry over to the courtyard exit, the one that led down a narrow passage between castle walls, then outside the castle altogether.

Harry followed.  In fact, Harry followed him trustingly all the way to the Quidditch Pitch that was the site of tomorrow's Task -- engulfed now by a gigantic hedge.  House changing rooms remained around the periphery, though.  Cedric could hear his own heart beat in his ears and felt ready to belch from nerves.  Harry paced beside and a little behind him and Cedric slowed his stride so the younger boy could keep up . . . except he didn't.  He fell behind again.

Once they'd reached the pitch, Cedric led Harry into the Hufflepuff changing rooms, and Harry glanced around in curiosity.  "They look the same as ours.  Well, apart from the color."

"Hardly a surprise," Cedric told him, moving towards the back where he had an office as Captain.  He unlocked it with a tap of his wand.  "Come in."  And he lit the lamps with a wave.

Harry followed.  And here, in the lamplight, Cedric noticed what he'd been unable to see in the dark.

Harry didn't look like Harry.  Except of course he did.  It was still obviously Harry Potter, but he seemed taller -- older.  Yet he couldn't be.  Maybe it was just that his hair was shorter; had he got it cut that afternoon?  He wasn't wearing the same clothes he'd been wearing earlier, either (Cedric noticed such things when it came to Harry).  "What is it?" Cedric asked because the other boy was staring at him too.

But Harry just shook his head.  "Sorry -- being stupid."

"About what?"

"Nothing.  Well . . . "  he trailed off, scratching his head, as if puzzled.  "I don't even know where to begin.  I made all these plans, and now I don't know where to start explaining."

"Explaining what?"  Cedric's heart was hammering again, but despite his wild hopes and secret longings, he doubted Harry meant what he might wish he meant.

Sighing, Harry slumped down in one of the chairs in the office and instead of getting behind his desk, Cedric pulled around another to sit facing him.  Bending forward a little, he looked into Harry's face.  "The best place to begin is the beginning -- or so they say."  Cedric smiled at him.

Harry didn't smile back -- just stared again.  Then to Cedric's astonishment, he reached up to rub a thumb along Cedric's cheek.  "You really are real," he muttered.  Cedric jerked back, which he immediately regretted because Harry flinched and turned his head away.  "Sorry."

"You, er, took me by surprise," Cedric said.  "It's all right."  It had been very all right, but he could hardly admit that.

Harry sighed and looked up.  "First, I need to ask a really personal question.  And, um, I'm not trying to insult you or anything.  And I'm not, well, angry -- if it's true.  I just have to know and this may be my only chance to find out."  Harry took a deep breath, then blurted, "Do you like me?"

Cedric blinked and his stomach clenched.  He opened his mouth, shut it, then opened it again.  No sound came out.  How had Harry guessed?  No one knew.  Cedric had never confided in a soul.  Then he realized Harry couldn't possibly mean what his guilty conscience had assumed the boy meant.  "Of course I like you.  You're a good person, brave, fair at sports -- "

"No, I mean -- do you like me."  Harry's face was turning pink.  "Fancy me."  Then he shook his head and rubbed at his scar.  Cedric had noticed before that it was a nervous gesture.  "Do you have a crush on me, is what I'm trying to ask."

Mouth open again, Cedric sat back, once more robbed of his voice.  Harry looked up at him, studying him intently.  "Like I said, I wouldn't be angry if you did.  Or upset.  Someone told me you did, and I just . . . wanted to know."

Unable to answer Harry's question, afraid to be that honest, Cedric replied with a question of his own.  "Who told you such a thing?  And why wouldn't you be upset?  It's, er, well . . . "

Harry shrugged and ran a hand into his hair.  "So you're gay.  It's not a big deal.  I mean -- if you are.  Loads of people are.  Well, maybe not loads but enough.  And some of them are in office.  Well, Muggle office.  In the government, I mean.  Blair's government.  It's not like you're a mass murderer or anything."  Then Harry slapped a hand over his face.  "Blast.  I sound like an idiot."

Cedric was still trying to process everything Harry had just said, jumbled as it had been.  "Gay?" was all he managed to get out.  He'd never heard the word in reference to being queer; 'gay' meant 'happy,' and there was certainly nothing 'gay' about being who he was.

"Oh, er, um -- boys who like boys.  Lesbians are girls who like girls, and bisexuals like both.  I just assumed . . . well, I don't know what the Wizarding World calls it.  That's what Muggles call it."

"The Wizarding World doesn't discuss it," Cedric snapped, and Harry flinched.  "Sorry," Cedric apologized.  "I've just never heard the word you used.  Only queer or poofter or bent as a nine-bob note.  I don't even know what a nine-bob note is."

"Nine shillings, and there never was such a thing, which is sort of the point, I suppose.  And yeah, we -- I mean Muggles, I don't suppose I am one, right?  -- anyway, Muggles use the same terms, but they're not as nice."

Cedric scratched his head.  "I didn't know there was a nice word for it."

"Well, it's not like there's something wrong with you.  Um, er -- I mean, if you were.  It's just, well, not the usual, you know?"

Yet Cedric could still -- two years later -- remember his father's casual remark to him on the subject: It's not normal . . . they can't help how they are.  "Some people would say there's something wrong with it," he told Harry.

"Yeah, and some people think it's okay to use 'mudblood,' too."

Cedric winced instinctively at the ugly term.  "I see your point."  They sat a moment while Cedric stared at his hands.

"You are, aren't you?" Harry asked finally, his voice gentle.  Cedric nodded, risking a glance up, but Harry only nodded back.  "Well then, um, that answers that.  I don't guess it really mattered one way or the other, I just wanted to know."

"How did you know?" Cedric asked.  "You said somebody told you, but they can't have.  I've never told anyone."

"Cho guessed."

Cedric's stomach did a hard twist inside and he thought he might be sick right there.  "Who else has she told?"

"Nobody."  Harry reached out to take his hand.  "Just me."  He paused.  "You're shaking."

And Cedric realized he was.  "It's . . . I've never told anybody."  And he pulled his hand free even though it had been Harry touching him and Harry touching him was what he wanted most.  But it was also what he feared.  "I've never told anybody.  I expected them to hate me."

"Why?"

"Because I'm a bloody freak!"

Harry winced.  "Sorry, yeah.  I mean, I understand -- but no, I don't hate you and you're not a freak."  He shrugged and a tiny smile played at his mouth.  "It's sort of flattering, in a weird way."  Cedric just stared.  "That you'd like me, I mean.  Not that you're gay.  That's not flattering, it just is.  I mean --" He slapped a hand over his face again.  "I can't say anything right, can I?"

"No more than me," Cedric admitted.  "I don't know what to say either.  Except apologize."

"Don't do that!"  And it sounded so completely sincere, it took Cedric's breath.

"You're really not angry?" Cedric asked.

"No.  I'm really not."

"You don't think I'm, well -- queer?"

Abruptly the other boy grinned.  "Well you are queer.  But you're not queer."  Then he spit laughter.  "What a stupid joke.  Sorry."

But it made Cedric smile too, and he felt some of the shock leaving him.  He was still weak from adrenaline, and he wasn't sure what to say to Harry, but at least the other boy wasn't screaming obscenities at him.  Nonetheless, "I suppose, from how you phrased all that, you don't feel the same?"

The smile fell off Harry's mouth.  "I don't know," he admitted

-- which wasn't at all what Cedric had expected him to say.  The question had been almost rhetorical.  "You don't know?"

"No.  I mean, well -- I like girls.  I, um -- "  He was coloring a very bright pink.  "Actually, I like Cho."  Cedric's mouth dropped open as Harry went on in a rush, "But I don't know, I've been thinking a lot about you for the past, well, the past two months.  But I've never been interested in a boy before."  He blinked at Cedric almost owlishly.  "How do you know if you like a boy?"

And that was perhaps the strangest question Cedric had ever fielded.  "You just do.  It feels to me the same as you feel about girls -- about, er, Cho."  Now he was blushing.  "That sort of crazy-mad feeling you get when the person's around."

"You feel that for me?" Harry asked, as if astonished.  "But I'm not anything special."

Cedric smiled almost against his will.  "I think you are."

Before he could say more, he found himself being kissed -- rather hard and badly -- by Harry.  Once he got past the complete shock of it, he grabbed the back of Harry's head to return the kiss just as hard and frantically.  Everything he'd never felt with Cho he did feel now -- excitement, lust, belly-shaking tenderness, and a shrieking joy.

He was kissing Harry Potter.

He wondered when he was going to wake up.

But dream kisses didn't include slobber and teeth knocking together and almost overbalancing on his chair -- and he abruptly pulled back to stare into green eyes.  "Harry?"

"Was it bad?"

Cedric wanted to laugh.  Harry had just kissed him -- kissed a boy for probably the first time ever -- and he wanted to know something as mundane as whether it had been bad?  "Er, no.  I mean, a little wet maybe.  But not bad."  So he was lying, and he must be grinning like a fool, but he just didn't care.  "Can I kiss you again?"

Harry nodded, somewhere between shy and eager, and Cedric licked his lips, bending and turning his head so they didn't knock noses together.  He made this one gentler, a meshing -- no tongue, just lips.  Soft-soft, and his hand was cupping the back of Harry's neck.  Harry tried to match what Cedric did, his own hand gripping Cedric's hair.

Testing the waters, Cedric let his tongue slide out to touch Harry's lips, which opened.  Then his own mouth was being invaded -- literally -- by Harry's tongue, which moved too fast and of which there was too much.  Cedric pulled away.  "Gentle," he said.  "Relax.  It's not a Quidditch match."

Harry burst into giggles against his mouth.  "Sorry."

Cedric tried again, just a little swipe of tongue along Harry's teeth, a darting against Harry's own tongue, then he pressed the tip of his to Harry's and it was the most amazing sensation he'd ever experienced.  Suddenly -- uncomfortably -- he was as hard as a rock, and he shuddered.  He thought Harry must be feeling the same as the boy had started to tremble under Cedric's hand.  Cedric shifted his weight a bit, rising from the chair slowly and taking Harry up with him.  Harry let him lead, then their arms went around each other and there wasn't any distance between their bodies.  And at that, Cedric could feel Harry just as hard.

What in bloody hell was he doing?  He pulled away again, panting and pressing his forehead to Harry's.  The boy was fourteen.  "I'm sorry.  I shouldn't -- You're so young."

"Less so than you think," Harry muttered back, hands still fisted in Cedric's robes as he tilted his face up to kiss Cedric again, briefly.  "Don't worry about it."

"Harry -- "

"Don't worry about it."

"Harry, you don't understand.  I want -- You don't understand."

"What, are you dim?  Cedric, I'm not an idiot."  He turned his body just a little so that his hip hit Cedric's own erection inside his robes and trousers.  "I have one of those too."  Then he was laughing.  "And that's a bit strange."

"Exactly," Cedric said, pulling back even more.  "I've . . . well, I've felt this way as long as I can remember.  About boys.  This is . . . strange, yes.  But it's, um -- it's what I've been dreaming about all my life."  He didn't know how to explain.  It did feel strange; boys weren't supposed to kiss boys.  But when he closed his eyes and did so, it felt like the most natural thing in the world.  This was him, heart, soul and body.  "It's not the same for you."

"I'm not so sure," Harry said.  "It feels strange . . . and doesn't.  I think it's just what we learn to expect.  I didn't expect this, but it's not so odd.  Kissing is kissing.  Girl and boy, boy and boy . . . "  Harry looked up at him again and Cedric was struck once more by the obvious that he'd lost sight of while they'd talked.  This wasn't Harry -- or not the Harry he knew.

"You're taller," he said abruptly.  "And you don't look the same."  Cedric was starting to get an absolutely impossible, insane suspicion.

Harry was smiling just a little, and he loosened his grip on Cedric without letting him go.  "It's me.  Just . . . me older."

Suspicion confirmed, Cedric tilted his head.  "How?  And how much older?"  Now that he was really looking hard and had the confirmation, he could see other differences.  There was less baby fat in Harry's face, and the adult lines were starting to emerge.  He looked like he had to shave too, which Cedric had felt a bit while kissing him.

"Not quite sixteen," Harry said.

"So that's . . . a year from now?  Why are you here talking to me in the past when you could be talking to me -- "

He cut off.

The truth hit him like a sucker punch, or a kick to the balls, hard and fast and shocking, followed by a sluice of ice water.  He stood frozen.  "I'm dead," he said softly.  "In your time, I'm dead.  I must be.  Or you wouldn't be here asking this me questions you could ask that me."  Harry's face was shocked, as if Cedric had made the leap faster than he'd anticipated.  Cedric trailed off and slid down right out of Harry's embrace.  His legs simply wouldn't hold him up.  "How?" he asked.

Harry dropped to kneel in front of him, hand gripping his chin.  "It doesn't have to happen.  That's why I came back.  It can't happen -- I won't let it."

"Harry -- you can't change the past.  It's very, very illegal -- and plain wrong.  How did you even get here . . . ?"

Harry pulled a silver sphere on a chain from under his shirt and showed it to Cedric.  "Do you know what a Time-Turner is?"

Cedric's jaw dropped.  "How did you get that?  Did someone give -- "

"No.  Well, not exactly.  And you can change the past.  I have before.  It was only a few hours back, and it's a long story -- but it's possible.  I'm not going to let you die again.  Not now.  Not . . . well -- " He cut off, grabbing Cedric's face to kiss him, hard but brief.  "Not now," as if that explained everything.  And maybe it did.  "So listen to me, all right?"  Cedric nodded dumbly, still trying to process the whole of what had happened tonight, from Harry knowing about his crush, to kissing him . . . to the revelation this wasn't his Harry, but an older version who'd come back through time -- illegally -- to warn him he was going to die.

"Tomorrow you and I will go into the maze at the same time.  But the cup -- it's a portkey.  I think it was supposed to be one anyway, charmed to port the person who grabbed it first back to the arena.  But it was reset.  It took us somewhere else."

"Us?"

"We took the cup together -- we agreed.  A Hogwarts' victory."  Harry smiled, quick and brief.  "We thought we'd celebrate together too.  Not, um" -- he colored -- "not like, well . . . I didn't know then how you felt.  Anyway, the cup took us to the south of England, to a graveyard.  Voldemort was waiting -- "

"What?!"  Cedric was almost too surprised to react at hearing the Dark Lord's name.

"He was waiting.  He had a helper in the castle -- the person who put my name in the cup.  It was all an elaborate plan to get me to Voldemort so he could cast a spell and get his body back.  He needed my blood."  And Harry pulled up his sleeve to show Cedric an old scar, white and faded.

Cedric ran a fingertip over the scar and Harry shivered.  "Did he?  Come back?"

"Yes.  It's -- It's horrible, the way things are now.  So much went wrong.  And seeing him return . . . and kill you -- "

"I died -- will die -- tomorrow?"

"No.  You're not going to die tomorrow.  That's why I came back.  You're not going to die.  I won't let it happen."

Harry spoke fiercely and Cedric was suddenly faced by the boy who'd outflown a dragon and swum like a merman under the Black Lake.  The boy who, according to school legend, had already faced and defeated the Dark Lord (however weakened) twice since coming to Hogwarts -- and that didn't count the first time.

This was Harry Potter.

"I want to believe you," Cedric whispered.  "But there's a reason people don't go back in time, Harry.  The past . . . it's dangerous to tamper with.  Extremely dangerous.  The further back the change made, the more all the threads get tangled.  Terrible things can happen."

He didn't want to die.  He didn't.  He was terrified.  But if he let Harry save him . . . what would that do to the future?  "If you change the past too much, it changes everything in your future."

"I know," Harry replied.  "That's more or less the idea.  I want to change the future.  I want to stop the future I'm living in."

"But you'll die."

"No, I won't.  Well, I suppose this me will cease to be.  But the other me -- the me who's here in your time.  He won't die.  I won't die.  And you won't die, either."

And that was making Cedric's brain hurt.  He rubbed his forehead.  "All right.  I suppose.  But I still don't know how --"

"Don't take the cup tomorrow.  Whatever I say, or do, or insist.  Don't take it.  You going with me -- it doesn't make any difference.  He just killed you, Cedric."  Harry's voice cracked.  "He just killed you.  You being there didn't make any difference.  Not in what happened after."

Abruptly, his arms were around Cedric's neck and he was hugging him tightly, but there was no lust in this, nothing of passion.  It was all desperation.  "You dying, though -- that made all the difference in the world.  He called you 'the spare.'  'Kill the spare,' he said.  You're not a spare.  Not to me.  Not to your friends.  Not to your parents.  I won't let it happen again.  And if it changes the future, if it stops my present, ends it -- good."

Still confused, and frightened, but feeling a touch of hope and a lot of gratitude, Cedric raised his own arms to embrace Harry in return.  "Thank you," he said, a little overcome by Harry's words.  "It's nice to know I'm not a spare."

Harry didn't reply, but didn't let him go either.  They clung together for long minutes and Cedric's own feelings shifted from shock and relief back to something more blood-driven.  How could he think, right now, about what he wanted to do with Harry?  But of course he was.  He might die tomorrow.  Even with Harry coming back, he might die tomorrow -- he was out of time.  It made him bold.  Turning his head, he kissed Harry's cheek, then neck.

And Harry let him, even turned his head to the side to grant him easier access.

Things tumbled downhill from there -- all feeling, no thought or reason or common sense.  Cedric had what he'd wanted so badly.  And Harry wasn't fighting him; Harry, in fact, seemed just as eager as he undid the fastenings on Cedric's robe while Cedric undid those on his.  Once, Cedric tried to ask something, but Harry just covered his mouth and Cedric's brain switched off once more.  They were male, and high on a rollercoaster of emotions that had ranged from peaks of fear and relief to stomach-dropping lust.  It was the latter that pulled them down now into blood need and body heat.  All Cedric knew was that, however impossibly, Harry's skin was under his hands and mouth, and Harry wanted him back just as badly.

Even so, it was a start and stop process.  Harry was shy in a way Cedric hadn't expected.  A lifetime of being admired had made Cedric relatively at ease about his body; he knew he was pretty.  The thing he'd been most shamed by -- the direction of his own desire -- was reciprocated by the boy undressing him, so he allowed it without protest.  But past outer robes, pullover, shoes, socks and tie -- and glasses -- Harry turned blushing and shy.  "What's wrong?" Cedric whispered.  "I want to touch your skin, Harry, I want to kiss every part of you."

Head tilted uncertainly, Harry couldn't speak for a full minute while Cedric tugged at his trousers.  "I'm not . . . I don't look like you."

-- which made Cedric laugh.  "I should hope not.  Peter may call me a peacock, but I'm not inclined to that level of narcissism."

Harry glared.  "I mean I'm not ...  I'm not built like you."  He glared down at his chest showing pale beneath the unbuttoned white shirt.  "I'm scrawny."

Still grinning, Cedric just shook his head.  "I doubt you'll stay that way.  You're going to have broad shoulders" -- he touched them inside Harry's shirt -- "and be built thicker than me.  You're just not there yet."  That reminded him, yet again, of the difference in their ages, which worried him for other reasons.  Frowning, he ran his palms over Harry's chest.  "Are you sure about this?"

Getting up on his knees, Harry steadied himself with hands on Cedric's own shoulders.  "Yes."  He didn't sound uncertain now -- that Gryffindor courage perhaps, concealing nerves.  Or maybe he really wasn't uncertain.  "You're not seducing me, Cedric.  I think it might be the other way around, actually.  I came back looking for you."  So Cedric kissed him, content to be seduced.

There were mechanics to figure out, as well.  However exciting this felt, however natural for Cedric as they lay stretched across both their robes on the floor of Cedric's office, it also wasn't self-evident.  Cedric had been too ashamed and embarrassed to look in places where he might have learned what to do.  He was flying in the dark, navigating by Harry's moans and kisses.  At least Harry's body was the same, and Cedric had some idea what he liked himself, so he tried that.  When he stroked Harry's prick just so, Harry did it back.  When he kissed Harry's belly just below the ribcage, Harry twisted like a mongoose, getting himself free and rolling Cedric over to do the same, making Cedric's own prick flex and bounce in excited response.  Their hands explored and fondled, even tickled unintentionally sometimes.  Cedric discovered he could laugh -- he could enjoy this.  It wasn't all desperate and forbidden and shameful.  For a little while, it just was.

"If we're going to do anything else," he muttered finally, his voice sounding throaty to his own ears while they stroked each other in a mutual rhythm, "we'd better do it soon.  I won't last much longer."

"What else do we do?" Harry asked in return.  "I've never done this before."

"Me, either," Cedric admitted.  Well, he hadn't with another boy anyway.

"You don't know?"

Feeling stupid, Cedric shook his head while kissing Harry's chest.  "Never tried to find out.  Couldn't.  Too . . . well, I just didn't."

"I understand," Harry replied, pulling up Cedric's head with his hands so he could look Cedric in the eye.  "I don't much know what to do with girls beyond the general either -- never asked."

"And you definitely didn't ask about boys," Cedric finished, half grinning.

"Definitely didn't ask about boys," Harry agreed.  "Except, well, what you hear."  He paused and his green eyes slid sideways.  "I think you're supposed to go inside me."

Cedric was taken aback.  "How?  We're sort of missing something girls have.  Unless you mean in your mouth -- ?"  That was what he'd had in mind anyway, hoping Harry might be game too.

"Well, um . . . " Harry blushed.  "I think in the arse, actually."

And how strange for Harry to be telling Cedric that, with Cedric being older, but Harry seemed to know more.  He'd known a term -- gay -- that Cedric had never heard himself, and now he was telling Cedric how boys made love to boys.  "It sounds rather painful," Cedric commented, even while it also sounded exciting.  To be inside that way . . . he'd barely realized how much he wanted it until Harry suggested it.

"I don't suppose it could be that painful," Harry replied, "if people want to do it.  It hurts girls at first, too -- or that's what I've heard.  Maybe you just get used to it?"

"Maybe," Cedric agreed.  His brain seemed to have resurrected itself enough to consider the question, and he rubbed thoughtfully at Harry's bare shoulder.  "We'll need something slick, I think.  For me to get inside."

Reaching down, Harry stroked Cedric's prick and Cedric had to close his eyes and bite his lips.  "Don't," he said.  "I'll come.  I mean it."

"Maybe that's what we could use," Harry replied.  "It's slick."

Cedric swallowed.  "It is.  And, well, if you, um, if you want to be the one, I suppose that's all right.  I want you too badly.  I don't care if it hurts a little."  Or a lot, as the case might be.  If it felt good for Harry --

But Harry was taking his hand and putting it on his own prick.  "No.  It's okay.  You do me."

Cedric didn't have to have that opportunity offered twice.

It didn't take Harry long either, and Cedric watched in delighted wonder while the younger boy clenched his teeth and strained up into Cedric's hands as he came, white semen spurting all over Cedric's fingers and making a pool in his palm.

Then Harry was turning over and raising up on his knees, offering his arse.  More aroused than he'd ever been in his life -- at least that he could remember -- Cedric smeared Harry's ejaculate on his own prick and then smeared it all around Harry's arsehole, one slickened finger sliding in to feel around.  "Ah!" Harry cried out and Cedric's stomach clenched.  He was still aware enough to be put off at the idea of hurting the boy.

"All right, Harry?"

"Yeah," Harry said through clenched teeth, then a surprised, "Oh."  Then a gasp and, "Hurry.  There's something up inside there.  Oh."

Cedric thought he might have found it, whatever it was.  He hadn't even known it was there, but it swelled a little under his finger the same as a cock might.  Harry's mouth was open in surprise, his eyes shut.  Without the glasses, his face looked oddly blank, but Cedric liked looking at him without the glasses.  He rubbed the spot a little faster.

"Oh, God," Harry muttered.

To Cedric's surprise, he could see the boy was half-hard again, purple head just peeking out of the foreskin.

"Inside!" Harry croaked.  "Now."

Raising up on his knees, Cedric leaned the front of his thighs against the back of Harry's, nudging Harry's apart a little more.  Then he spread the cheeks of Harry's white arse, took hold of his own prick, which was leaking fluid, and rubbed the head of it against the exposed red pucker of anus, his forefinger still inside.  This was a bit awkward, more like lining up jars on a shelf than a wild, passionate act.  He added a second finger up inside Harry, still stroking that spot.  Harry was pushing back against his hand, panting a little.  Cedric could feel the muscles of Harry's sphincter twitching and clenching around his fingers, and he should probably worry about the sanitation of it all, but his brain had gone to a completely different place.  Or rather, his body had gone there.  His brain had stopped functioning entirely.

Removing his fingers, Cedric pushed the head of his cock inside.  Harry gasped and clenched and muttered, "Ow."

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," Cedric whispered.  "Sorry."

"Hurry.  I want -- just hurry."

In reply, Cedric pushed his entire length inside and Harry shouted.  Cedric didn't know if that were from pain or not, but he was so lost, he felt scarcely conscious and had to hold absolutely still to keep from coming on the spot.  The entrance had been tight-tight, but further inside felt a bit hollow, and his world had narrowed to the flesh encasing six inches.  His arms were around Harry's waist, his head against Harry's back between his shoulder blades.  Absently, he licked salty skin.

"Do something," Harry said, sounding at the very edge of what he could bear.

Cedric licked him again, as if he could soothe him that way, and -- very gently -- began to move in and out with little thrusts.  "Relax," he whispered.  Harry was twitching, as if trying to adjust his posture, and Cedric (dimly) recalled that the swollen spot was below, towards Harry's front, not his spine.  He adjusted his own posture a little and Harry suddenly gasped.  "Did I find it?" Cedric whispered, almost incapable of coherent speech.

"Found it," Harry replied through obviously clenched teeth.

And then something happened, some alchemy.  Cedric was moving, thrusting carefully and Harry was rocking back onto him.  Cedric put a hand on Harry's half-erect prick, which responded to the new attention, and it all felt perfect -- profound and mind-blowing.  Transported by his bliss and overcome by the new sensations, Cedric felt his balls tighten and knew he was about to ejaculate.  He got in two more quick thrusts, then it was pouring out of him -- his need and hope and love and lust and all of it.  His whole self.  He spent his whole self inside Harry and collapsed on his back, panting and almost crying.  Harry slid down from his knees onto his belly under their combined weight.  Too stunned, they didn't speak.  Cedric buried his face against the back of Harry's neck.

After some minutes, Cedric felt Harry wiggling under him.  "You're heavy," he muttered.  Pulling out as gently as he could manage, Cedric rolled onto his back while Harry twisted to lay his head on Cedric's shoulder.  Even in June, Cedric's office was a bit cold and he could feel goosepimples rise on his skin now that the blood-rush was past.  He was sticky, too, and stroked Harry's back and shoulder, or as much of it as he could reach with Harry lying on that arm.  He didn't want to move, not ever, even to clean up.

But he knew he had to.  It was quite late now, and he had lots of things to do before tomorrow.  "Who is it?" he asked Harry.

"Who's what?" Harry replied, voice sounding constricted and lazy at once, as if he weren't sure what to think of what they'd just done.

"The person inside the castle who spelled the cup into a portkey.  You mentioned him before we, er, got distracted.  But you didn't tell me his name.  Did you ever find out who it was?  That's the best way to stop it.  I'm not going to just stand back and let them take you either, you know."  His grip on Harry tightened slightly.

Harry raised himself up on an elbow, squinting down at Cedric and Cedric reached behind him, finding Harry's glasses where they'd laid them out of the way and handed them over.  "Thanks," Harry said, putting them on.  It was sort of funny to see him wearing nothing but glasses.  "I've been thinking, while we've been lying here -- rethinking."

Cedric opened his mouth but Harry put a hand over it.  "Just listen.  You can't go back into the castle tonight and tell them about the cup.  They'll want to know how you know.  What are you going to say?  How many Wizarding laws did I break tonight, Cedric?  Enough to get me sent to Azkaban?  And I can't plead ignorance.  I knew exactly what I was doing."

"It won't matter.  If we change what happens, then you'll . . . "  He trailed off.  "They can't arrest you if you don't exist.  And they can't arrest the younger you for something the older you did."

"Maybe not -- but they could arrest you."

"For what?  I didn't do anything.  Well" -- he glanced down at himself -- "except this.  But I don't have to tell them about this.  I can just say you came back in time to stop the Tournament.  Or I could even say I figured it out myself, depending."  Cedric sat up.  "Just tell me -- who is it?"

Harry hesitated, then said quietly, "Moody.  He's not really Moody.  He's Barty Crouch -- the younger Barty Crouch."

Cedric's eyes went wide as he recognized the name from things his father had said.  "The Death Eater?  But he's dead -- "

"No, he's not.  It was a ruse with his mother.  Long explanation, but she basically died for him, so he could escape Azkaban."

Cedric shook his head.  "But how -- how could he be Moody?  Poly--"

"Exactly -- Polyjuice Potion."

Cedric ran a hand through his hair.  "All right.  So I'll go to Dumbledore, or Bagman, and say that I've had some doubts about Moody, and --"

"Cedric" -- Harry sat up too -- "it's not going to work.  Dumbledore will know.  He's a Legilimens."  Cedric blinked at that; he hadn't been aware of it, but wasn't surprised.  "Just tell him.  I think . . . well, he'll be angry with me, but like you said, I won't be around.  Once you make the first move that changes the past, I should, er, just disappear.  And Dumbledore was the one who helped us use Time-Turners before to, ah, change something.  It wasn't so far in the past, but I think . . . I think he might understand, even if he were angry.  To save your life, and to stop Voldemort from coming back -- he'd understand."

Cedric couldn't help wincing at the Dark Lord's name.

"Just don't talk to anyone but Dumbledore, and for God's sake, don't try to do anything to Moody yourself, yeah?  The whole point of this is to keep you alive, not give someone a chance to kill you sooner."

Cedric nodded.  It was common sense enough, although it felt strange to talk so casually about the possibility of his own death, or that of the older Harry.  But that was what would happen, wasn't it?  The Harry he'd just made love to -- he was going to die.  They could euphemize it, say he'd 'cease to be' -- but he was going to die.  "You did this," he said now, "came back here to warn me, even though you knew it would kill you."

Harry shook his head violently.  "I'm not dying.  Just the me in this future -- and I don't want to keep living there, Cedric.  Not in that world.  Not if I can change it.  You can't imagine how bad -- "

Now it was Cedric's turn to put a hand over Harry's mouth.  "Yes," he said, "I can imagine.  There've been times I've thought about it -- dying.  Just ending it all.  It's so hard to live like this."

And he suddenly found himself engulfed by Harry again.  "Don't talk like that!"

"It's lonely," Cedric told him, hearing his own voice break even as his arms snaked around Harry's shoulders.  The boy's naked skin felt so good against his, and not for erotic reasons, just out of a craving for human closeness.

"I'll still be there.  It's still me.  Well, sort of.  You'll have to take your time.  That me has a crush on Cho Chang, but I'll get over it.  Be patient.  I'll still like girls.  But yeah, I think maybe I like boys, too -- at least I like you."  He squeezed Cedric, who squeezed him back.  "And you've got friends.  Talk to them."

"Harry, I can't -- "

"Yes, you can."  Harry drew away to look at him.  "They miss you.  I can't tell you too much; I've already said more than I should.  But they miss you.  Your whole House, they were devastated over what happened.  You meant a lot to them."

"That's the me they think they know.  It's not the real me.  They wouldn't like the real me."

"Don't keep saying that.  Unless it's all a front.  Is it all a front, or just the part about being gay?"

Cedric blinked.  "What do you mean?  That's a pretty big part."

"Not really.  Well, I guess it is, but I mean it doesn't have anything to do with the you they admire.  They don't admire you for dating Cho, Cedric.  They admire you for everything else.  You're a prefect, a good student, a really powerful wizard, a fantastic Quidditch player . . . a really nice person.  All that is you."

Cedric blinked.  "But I'm queer.  Gay.  Whatever.  It's not . . . That changes things."

"Only to people who are idiots.  I'm not suggesting you stand up on a table in the Great Hall and make an announcement."

Cedric snorted in horrified laughter at even the jesting thought of doing such a thing, and Harry grinned too.  "But you can tell some people," he said.  "You don't have to be alone.  You can tell me, at least."

"But -- "

"Hey -- I know how I'd react, don't I?  It's me.  Just younger.  I'll be surprised.  It might take me a bit to get my head around it, but more because I never guessed, never really thought about it.  Out in the Muggle World, it's not as badly regarded, all right?  It's not that they're all accepting or anything, but I didn't learn to think about it the way you obviously did.  I'm not going to hate you, or make fun.  And I wouldn't tell a soul."

"I can't exactly tell you about . . . this.  About us."

"No, but you can tell me the truth about yourself.  You can tell me at least, and know I won't laugh or make fun.  And I bet you can tell some others -- maybe even Cho.  She did guess."  Cedric winced.  "She was upset, but I think she was more upset because you lied to her.  She didn't talk about you liking boys as if she thought it was disgusting.  She's pretty clever, y'know.  She is in Ravenclaw."

Cedric smiled.  "I know."

Harry opened his mouth to say more but Cedric shut him up with a kiss.  He didn't want to talk further.  His body was reminding him that he was sitting next to the very naked boy he'd had a crush on for half a year.  And after tonight, it was going to be a long time before Harry Potter was ready and willing to be kissed by Cedric Diggory -- if ever.  Assuming that Cedric survived the next evening.

Harry seemed willing to be diverted, and they were young enough, and this was new enough, to be up for twice in an hour, the second time with mouths.  Harry didn't need to explain how to do that; Cedric had been dreaming about it for years -- another boy hard against his tongue and lips, pulsing in his mouth.  He had to stop Harry from working on him at the same time.  "Too distracting," he hissed, and returned his attention to the body he straddled, licking and sucking the cock head and all around the retracted foreskin, then moving his mouth up and down on the shaft while his free hand stroked Harry's balls.  Harry writhed beneath him, making mewling noises and whines and moans that were almost enough in themselves to cause Cedric to ejaculate.

Harry ejaculated instead, right into Cedric's mouth, and the suddenness of it almost choked him.  He'd felt the boy's prick twitch and then his mouth was full of semen.  He swallowed instinctively around Harry, making the boy shout and arch up, nearly choking him worse.  Cedric had to take his mouth away, although he slid a hand up to the head, covering it.  Then he fell over on his side, panting and wiping his mouth with his free hand, his eyes closed.

Harry was panting too, and reached down to close his hand over Cedric's where it still gripped him.  "Thank you," he whispered.

"You're welcome."

"Did it taste bad?"

Cedric laughed a little.  "It didn't taste good, but I could get used to it."

Which in turn made Harry laugh, then twist on his side, pulling out of Cedric's grip to get his own mouth around Cedric's prick.  Cedric made a "Nggg" noise, then just lay there, one knee raised while Harry sucked him until he came too -- not as powerfully as the first time but the sensations were more intense, the release more of a release, the kind one had after being hard a while and finally getting off.  He was trembling, and lay a moment, just running his palm up and down Harry's thigh and studying the boy from this angle.  This older Harry had a substantial amount of pubic hair, and his legs were lightly downed, his penis and testicles almost fully developed.  From this angle, he didn't look like a boy at all, and raising up, Cedric twisted to climb his body until they were face to face.  "You're going to be thicker than me, but you're not going to be very tall, are you?" he asked.

Harry blinked and tried to focus on Cedric's face.  The glasses were gone again.  "Er, probably not.  Where did that come from?"  He seemed amused.

"Whatever you said before, you're nearly grown.  You'll fill out more, but you're nearly grown."  Cedric shifted his balance to free a hand and run a finger up Harry's cheek, feeling the soft whiskers.  "You'll get another few inches maybe."

Harry's eyebrow went up and Cedric could sense his insecurities coming back.  "Does it matter?"

Grinning, Cedric just shook his head.  "I was mostly observing.  I think you're perfect the way you are."

"Oh."  Harry was blushing.  "Well, you're bloody tall, you know.  Most people aren't as tall as you are."

"I know."  He grinned again, but it faded.  They couldn't just lie here.  "What time is it, do you think?"

"Dunno.  It was a bit after ten when I found you."

"It must be close to two in the morning.  My denmates will wonder where the hell I am.  Or speculate."  He made a face and fell over to lie on his back next to Harry, hands clasped on his chest.  "They probably expect I'm with Cho, losing my virginity."

Harry snorted beside him.  "Well you did lose your virginity.  Just not with Cho."

"Yeah, I suppose I did, didn't I?"

"Did I?"

Cedric turned his head to look at Harry, who was looking back, green eyes wide.  "I . . . dunno," Cedric replied.  "I suppose.  I mean, it's not exactly the same, so the same definitions can't apply, can they?  But . . . yeah.  Yeah, I think you did."

Harry nodded once, took a breath and sat up.  "You should get dressed and go back to the castle.  You've got to get some sleep tonight."

"I'm going to Dumbledore, is what I'm doing," Cedric replied, pushing himself up as well to stand.  He felt sticky and his legs were shaky, but he Vanished the half-dry evidence of their romp.  Harry was standing now too, his own legs spread.  He winced when he took a step.  "Did I . . . does it hurt much?" Cedric asked.

"I'm a bit sore, but I'll be all right.  It won't matter."

Cedric frowned, reminded again that if he were successful, this Harry would cease to be.  "Where are you going to go?  You can't risk anybody else seeing you."

"I don't know . . . could I, well -- could I just stay here?"

"I don't see why not," Cedric replied.  "Are you hungry?  I'll bring something back for you in the morning."

"I . . . all right.  If I'm still here."

They dressed and Harry let Cedric kiss him again.  A goodbye kiss.  It was intense and sweet and whatever Harry had said earlier, Cedric knew it would have to be enough for a long time.  Maybe for the rest of his life.  When he broke it, he pressed his forehead to the side of Harry's for a moment, then turned quickly and left the office without looking back.

Part 5: Intrigue

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